


Midnight

by Just_Me_Here



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Protective Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-05-12 13:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19230004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Me_Here/pseuds/Just_Me_Here
Summary: Natasha was woken up by something in the middle of the night. What that something was she did not know, and it was infuriating her. She could feel eyes on her but could not spot them. When she'd first awoken she'd instinctively grabbed the gun from under her pillow aiming it at apparently nothing.





	1. Chapter 1

Natasha was woken up by something in the middle of the night. What that something was, she did not know, and it was infuriating her. She could feel eyes on her, but could not spot them. When she'd first awoken she'd instinctively grabbed the gun from under her pillow aiming it at apparently nothing. Her bedroom door was closed and it was as she was doing a last last scan of the room that the scratching drew her attention towards the window. There she saw a small black fur-ball, who's fur blended perfectly with the darkness outside.

Natasha headed towards the window, taking care to check to see if she spotted anyone outside, lest the thing be a distraction. Only when she saw nothing that aroused her suspicions, did she finally open the window. The fur-ball immediately went inside her room, curling up on her bed and closing its eyes. "What the...." She slowly approached the cat who had claimed her bed and it lifted it's head, setting it back down when it saw it was her. "You know, everybody else would not have calmed down by seeing it was me approaching... And I'm talking to a cat..." The cat looked at her once more seeming annoyed by her, possibly because she was stopping it from falling asleep. "You woke me up first! Who do you belong to anyway?"

Natasha picked up the cat, who seemed compliant enough, and noted that it was a female. Already having noticed the absence of a collar, why would it be that easy anyway, she sat down and placed the cat on her lap. It curled up on it, and she felt around for a possible chip, no such luck. If it was later in the day she would have just gone knock on doors to ask if the little black cat belong to anyone in the building, but it was three in the morning so that did not seem like a good idea. "Guess you're staying here tonight. There's no way you're staying in my bed though." She got up as she said that.

The cat, who had been calm so far, started meowing and squirming in her hold, but she only let it go once she was outside her bedroom. It tried to run past her into the bedroom but a quick foot in front of it stopped that from happening. The fur-ball looked up at her indignantly but she just glared at it and closed her door.

Natasha lasted almost an hour before the scratching and the meowing, that seemed to be getting sadder and sadder, got her to open the door. The cat just sat by it and looked up at the woman, it's eyes wide and begging. The redhead just stepped aside rolling her eyes and the cat rushed to her bed. She groaned but just let it curl up and go to sleep, laying on the bed to go to sleep too, Right before she was about to fall asleep again she felt the bed softly move with the cats footsteps getting closer, she didn't open her eyes and the cat laid down next to her head with it's head on her shoulder.  
\----

When Natasha awoke the cat was gone, she figured it left through the window that she hadn't closed after letting it in. She did not feel even a little bit disappointed by that, no way. After having breakfast she got ready to leave to the Avengers Tower, she had her own room there which she sometimes used, but she preferred to have her own space so she mostly used her apartment. She didn't have to go to the tower everyday, but she liked training daily and the intensity of her training could make people ask questions so she never liked normal gyms, and Stark's was a lot better than the one and Shield. She'd never tell him that though.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Of course I am." And she was, she was not upset that a cat that she had known for less than five hours, most of which she'd been asleep for, wasn't there when she woke up and had probably gone home. If she were upset in any way it would be simply because she didn't wake up when said cat had moved around on the bed, she always woke up over the slightest movements. And no, her failure to wake up had nothing to to being comfortable in the presence of the cat. Luckily Clint knew better than to press her.  
\-----

That night she woke up at around three again, this time her eyes going straight to the window, and there it was, the black fluff-ball. She glared at the cat but ultimately surrendered to it's big begging blue eyes and opened the window, Once again the cat bolted for her bed. Natasha huffed but followed it. Like the previous night the cat waited until she was almost asleep before curling up near her head, and like the previous morning, it was gone when she woke up, that did in no way upset her.  
\-----

The cat belonged to no one. When the same thing happened on the third night and morning she decided to go around the apartments to ask about the cat, someone needed to learn to close their windows at night. What she'd gotten out of her efforts were the urge to kill the dude-bro that lived at the end of her floor, and the knowledge that the cat was probably a stray, but it looked well fed and pretty clean, so she also gained some confusion.  
\-----

After almost a week of the cat showing up at around three in the morning, Clint had noticed that her mood seemed to have lifted. The thing no longer bolted inside as soon as Natasha opened the window, a few more days after that and it no longer waited until the redhead was almost asleep before curling up next to her head. It still left before she woke up though, but she never closed the window to stop it from doing so, she didn't want to trap it. Eventually Natasha stopped closing the window but she still woke up when the cat jumped on her bed,she even left it open when she wasn't going to be home, the black fur she found on her pillow when she returned showed the cat had been there.

It had been almost two months since the cat, Natasha had started addressing it as Midnight after Clint had insisted she should name it, had showed up the first time, when it showed up earlier then usual, six hours earlier. Natasha was in her living room, trying to decompress ,with a cup of tea and the tv turned on at a low volume, there had been an attack at a lab in New York, hydra agents, quite a few of them. Natasha had gotten a few scratches during the fight, nothing major, but one of the agents had gotten away, all Natasha saw of the small woman was her long midnight black hair. At least she had been empty handed, but they still couldn't figure out what Hydra had wanted in the first place. She hadn't been home long when she heard it, a very meek and weak meow.

Natasha looked towards her window and there it was, the cat, but it wasn't standing as proudly as it always seemed to be it was wobbling slightly. It's long fur seemed matter and it's front left paw was raised but not to scratch the glass. The redhead scurried to the window hastily opening it, catching the cat as it fell forward, unable to keep itself awake for longer.

The redhead's hands were shaking as she patched up the cat, using her first aid kit. She'd patched up a lot of wounds on herself and sometimes other people, a cat shouldn't be much different. It's paw didn't seem to be broken which was good, she'd also cleaned up it's fur as best as she could. She was sitting with her back against the headboard gently stroking Midnight's head when it let out a soft meow. Natasha shushed it. "You're okay now." It slowly raised it's head and stared into the woman's eyes, Natasha could see the pain in it's eyes. She tried to smile reassuringly at Midnight. Over the weeks she had noticed that Midnight did seem to react accordingly to what she had said or did, which after everything she had seen ,wasn't as shocking as it should have been. The cat nuzzled her hand."What happened to you, huh? Were you in a fight? I bet the other guy got it worse didn't they?." Midnight meows in response. "I have half a mind to just close the window and not let you back out anymore." Natasha would not say it out loud, to anybody, but she had grown very attached to the tiny fur-ball. She'd felt a connection to it from the first night, which for her was very strange. And she really wanted to just lock it inside her home and keep it safe, but due the panicked look the cat gave her she relented."But I won't do that, I promise." The cat relaxed in her lap again.

Natasha awoke the next morning with a cat licking her face, the sun was rising outside and she reached up to pet it. She'd never thought that the cat staying until she awoke would make her feel as glad as it did, but when she focused on Midnight the cat looked at the window and then back at her. Natasha smiled sadly. "You gotta go now don't you?" The cat meows, lowering its head. "Don't be late tonight, okay?" The cat licked her cheek one more time before hopping off the bed heading towards the window, stopping once it was perched on it to look back at the woman, Midnight meowed before jumping onto the fire escape stairs.

After that, Natasha ended up not seeing Midnight again for a month, and when she did see her again, she didn't recognize the woman standing in front of her as her Midnight. She did, however, feel the connection she had felt that first night she saw the cat.


	2. Before, she was Melody

"Whatever you're thinking of doing, don't."

"I'm not thinking of doing anything!" Melody's glare broke him in less than a minute, and she wasn't even looking at him. "Okay, fine, but hear me out, I promise this time it's gonna work." The girl hadn't lifted her eyes from her laptop's screen since he knocked on her bedroom door, however he, with his expectant eyes basically glued to her laying form, didn't miss the way her eyes rolled.

"That sentence sounds oddly familiar, I wonder where I've heard it before..." She paused and her electric blue eyes finally met his. "Oh, hold on a second, my tail hurts, I've been sitting on it for too long, and ooh, isn't it hot in here, let me just take off my hat. " She reached for it but stopped once she had it in her grasp. "Oh shoot, I can't do that, 'cuz you gave me cat ears too, but sure, let me be a lab rat again, I'm certain it won't just finish turning me into a cat." His mood seemed to have been brought down. He sat himself down on her bed

"Look, I'm sorry okay, it was an accident, and I really didn't mean for the tail to be added when I tried to fix the ears, But i think i really got it this time, please let me fix this." He took her hand in his and made sure to hold her gaze.

"One, More, Try. If it fails, again, we don't do this anymore, got it?"

"It'll work, i know it will!"

___

Melody groaned as she regained consciousness. Everything hurt but, she thought, at least she was in her own bed. The brunette's hands went to her head and her eyes widened. "They're gone... they're gone!" She screamed out Alvin's name and he came running in. Immediately beginning to fuss over her.

"You're awake. Good. How are you feeling? Every test came back normal, but are you feeling anything strange?" He was talking fast, way too fast for her headache to allow her to comprehend him.

"Can I have some Advil?"

"Yeah, here. Figured you'd be sore when you woke up." She took the pills and chugged the water glass he handed her. "Told you it would work this time."

"Yeah, this time." She said dryly. After almost a full year of living with cat ears, and just over six months of the tail joining it, she was free, no more everyday hats, no more accidentally sitting on her tail and having to hide the pain, she could wear tight pants again, she did miss those.

___

"I should've known." She thought, Alvin's experiments never worked, sooner or later something would happen that wasn't supposed to. She also believed that she really shouldn't have jinxed it. Instead of only having a cat's ears and tail, she was now a full blown cat. A cat. If she still had her opposable thumbs she would've strangled the bastard, Their years of history together be damned.

The girl was trying really hard to remain calm, knowing that panic wouldn't help, but she was failing and panicking anyway. If she had been home, she might have been more successful in remaining calm. But alas, she wasn't home, she was far from it, the distance seeming to increase due to her tiny form and inability to take public transport.

"Mommy, look! Kitty!" Melody ran when she saw the toddler try and make his way to her, dragging his mother by the hand. She'd already seen the way most toddlers handle animals and she was not in the mood to be manhandled like that, she already knew what it felt like to have her tail pulled as a human, she was not in the mood to find out how it would feel as a cat. She ran for as long as she could, having the presence of mind to do it in the direction of her shared home. When she first began running there was no gracefulness in her steps, tripping every few she took, however by the time she reached her front door, by that point she was walking, slowly, too exhausted to run, she seemed to have gotten the hang of four legged locomotion.

"Fiddlesticks, now what." Melody thought, yes she'd reached her home, but now she had to find a way in, scratching the door yielded no results, Alvin wasn't usually home at that time but, to her, it was worth a try. She was close to giving up, almost deciding to just wait outside for Alvin to get home, she didn't know what time it was, not knowing how long it took her to get back to her house as a cat, but she could wait a few hours, However she remembered his bedroom window, a window he usually left open all day, letting all sorts of bugs inside, and then complaining about them for what felt like hours, to Melody. There was one problem with the window, it was on the second floor, but she was a cat, they're known to climb up all sorts of impossible places, right? She thought so, and that gave her the courage to attempt the climb.

It did take hours for Alvin to return, she was stuck in his room until he did, but she wasn't sitting idly, no, she'd made sure to rub herself on as many surfaces as she could, leaving behind as many long strands of fur as possible, When he did return he was very surprised by the slumbering midnight black cat on his bed, It surprisingly didn't take him long to figure out just who the cat was, even if it still took longer than Melody would have preferred. His first suggestion of them waiting to see if she changes back was met with a hiss that scared him into action, almost running out of his own room claiming that he would find a way to fix whatever had gone wrong with his last experiment. He absentmindedly closed the door when he left and she was stuck in his room again. She huffed, making sure to get her claws extra deeply in his comforter while kneading it before laying down and resuming her disrupted nap.

"Melody. Melody wake up!" The girl was confused when she did so, but he paid no attention to that. "I realized that I locked you in here, well, not really but yes because you couldn't really open door, right? So I came back because it's been a few hours and you might be hungry, or thirsty, or, you know need the bathroom, and I really don't want you to do that in my room." The brunette glared at him. "Anyway, I haven't found a way to fix whatever that was, but your back so it doesn't matter, right? You're not too mad at me?" It took her a bit to realize what he said, her brain too focused on the fact that he hadn't found a way to fix her, but when she did, she almost jumped off of the bed in her rush to the nearest mirror. She'd never had as large a smile on her face before.

"I'm me again!" The boy spoke up after that, his voice made her believe that he was close to tears, something she confirmed when she looked back at him.

"Mel, I'm really, really sorry. I didn't... I was just trying to make it better. I'll fix it though, I promise, I'll run some test to see if that can happen again, and if it can I'll work on a way to stop it, I won't stop until I find it. Please don't hate me for this, you're my best friend... You're all I have." Melody let out a sigh, a soft smile on her face, she approached him and placed a hand on his face.

"You know you're my best friend too. We only have each other, so it would take a lot more than turning me into a cat to make me hate you." She hastily completed this with. "That was not a challenge, " Which made him chuckle. "It's late, so i'm gonna go catch up on my basic necessities, and you're going to go to sleep, we'll talk about how to fix it tomorrow, okay?" She lowered her hand when he nodded, his eyes weren't watery anymore. She was at his door, about to turn back and wish him goodnight when he spoke.

"Cuddles tonight?" She chuckled and exasperatingly shook her head, but there was a smile on her face when she responded.

"Sure, let me take care of myself first and I'll be back. Oh and... You know what will happen if you tell anyone I acted mushy, right? And I only did because you were being a baby!"

"Yeah, yeah, hurry, I'm tired, you napped for hours, I didn't."

___

He did try to fix it the next day, and the week after that, and the month after that, but he couldn't. She continued to shift in what appeared to be random moments, but she did begin to notice a pattern of the feelings she got when the shift was about to occur, so she at least had a warning to hide, preferably in a place that would give her an exit as a cat, she'd gotten stuck before, not fun. The shifts always seemed to last a few hour the longest one, by that point, standing at almost a full day, she thought she was hiding that past of her life very well. However what she didn't know. was that she had attracted the attention of a powerful agency with no qualms on taking people to work for them against their will. What she didn't know was that they had been watching her for a while, since one of her very first shifts, when she didn't recognize the signs so she did not run and hide until the shift began. What she didn't know was that they were only waiting to figure out a way to use her ability, for their own gain, to take her. Due to all of that, she wasn't prepared when, whilst in mid shift she left a slight prick on her neck and lost consciousness.

When she woke up they immediately began her training and conditioning, they failed at the second one, but a constant threat on Alvin's life seemed to work just as well at making her do whatever they wanted her too.


End file.
